Dispersonify

It is almost impossible for the most prosaic mind to dispersonify a ship. It requires a greater effort probably on the part of the Englishman to view a ship as an inanimate object than for the ancient Greek to dispersonify the sun or moon.

When even a stone was a cutter, a tooth a grinder, a gimlet a borer, the difficulty was not how to personify, but how to dispersonify.

Along these lines we can approach a pure allegorical reading — pure in being univocal, not hybridized. In this reading predicates are construed so as radically to dispersonify their meanings.

With these shifts in point of view, Thomson makes body parts not only the objects or the means but also the subjects of personification, granting the eyes and ears of a bee or a hare the power to dispersonify humans.